Here we go with rotten fruit again!

Recently, the movie "American Hustle" caught the attention of the 'fume blogosphere over Jennifer Lawrence's character's perfume soliloquy, where she goes on about great perfumes smelling "flowers and garbage." The secret is out. We like some bad in our smells. There was speculation that some screenwriter cribbed a review of Diorella.

Re: Here we go with rotten fruit again!

Wonderful! Diorella, that is ... I haven't read the novel(or watched the movie).

Btw, I have discovered another rotten fruit - actually, rotten grapefruit: Archives 69 by Etat Libre d'Orange. But it must be a personal hypersensitivity because nobody else seems to notice. In any case, it is now on my to buy list, and, unlike Diorella, this one seems to be still in production.

Re: Here we go with rotten fruit again!

I have a mini of the vintage. Diorella is tenacious. I can open the bottle for a quick sniff and still smell it when I walk back into my room half an hour later. Clings to clothing, and stays sweetly rotten well into drydown.

Re: Here we go with rotten fruit again!

Mauboussin is fruit, it's ripe, but it's polite by comparison. I think the anise note cleans it up. Diorella has that "what the hell!" quality where initial repulsion is immediately followed by "I gotta smell that again!"

Re: Here we go with rotten fruit again!

I think I tried Grenats a long time ago, but I don't remember anything - meaning I didn't get the rotten fruit. But I must try again then.

Btw, by chance I was walking by a Dior counter and sprayed Diorella. I had sprayed other stuff, and so I sprayed the shirt. I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Deep, citrusy, but with the rotten fruit in evidence. I had smelled it a couple of years ago, and it was a bland citrus inferior to the vintage one. This is clearly different again. Unfortunately, it's hard to know how it would fare on skin. But still, something I have to try again.

Re: Here we go with rotten fruit again!

Originally Posted by jujy54

Mauboussin is fruit, it's ripe, but it's polite by comparison. I think the anise note cleans it up. Diorella has that "what the hell!" quality where initial repulsion is immediately followed by "I gotta smell that again!"

I know the quality you're talking about!!! Yatagan was one with that exact thing - and of course I bought it immediately!

Originally Posted by jujy54

Thanks for the heads-up JDBIII. Was it the houndstooth printed label? New? Old?

RedneckPerfumisto, I did a side-by-side of Mauboussin and Diorella. After about 20 minutes they are remarkably similar. I'll have to try again and pay attention to the drydown.

Re: Here we go with rotten fruit again!

Le Parfum de Therese immediately comes to mind. I love it, in all its "ya probably shoulda eaten that one a couple days ago" glory. From Robin's 2005 Now Smell This review of Le Parfum de Therese:

Thérèse starts with sweet, over-ripe fruit, but the sweetness is perfectly tempered by the spice notes, and it demonstrates beautifully that a fragrance based on sweet, over-ripe fruit does not have to smell insipid, as it sadly does in so many recent fruity florals.

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart. ~ Helen Keller

Re: Here we go with rotten fruit again!

Slumberhouse's Pear + Olive has something of that quality too, in the clash between the ripe pear and "preserved" (a la "rotting") olive notes. I liked Pear + Olive on me the first time, but not since then. I may have been hungover, but the second time I tried it effectively ruined it for me. A straightforward and relatively innocuous pear and olive at the beginning, it soon developed a nasty piquancy resembling Roquefort or even perhaps getting into Limburger territory. It was something I definitely didn't want to have on my skin. Back to the shower with me.

It could be my chemistry, because I've seen a lot of praise for the scent, and I can't imagine most would want to smell like that, even if they were fragrance fans.